


Yippee Ki Yay

by neatomosquito



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Die Hard, F/M, Guns, M/M, brie cheese, die hard - Freeform, the die hard au that nobody asked for!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5149754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neatomosquito/pseuds/neatomosquito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JAKE PERALTA and AMY SANTIAGO are stuck in a building. They initially thought they'd be subjected to a boring night of platitudes and smiling; boy were they wrong! Plans change once a group of terrorists seize the building and take everyone hostage. Peralta and Santiago slip away and become the only chance anyone has in this heart-stopping action thriller.</p><p>(Yes, that is almost verbatim from the back of my copy of Die Hard thank you for noticing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Get Together, Have a Few Laughs

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the lack of coherency in this chapter, things'll get swell in no time. Yeah the whole point of Die Hard is that John McClane has to work himself to save the day, but do you want to fight me?
> 
> Updates will be slow coming (sort of in the middle of year 12 exams ha)
> 
> Reviews are very much appreciated xx

Amy hates these things.

She doesn’t hate dressing up, and she definitely doesn’t hate seeing her co-workers outside of the precinct, and she’s definitely had worst sushi; but these things don’t make up for everything else. Not the awkward small talk that she wishes she had prepared more thoroughly, or the older members of the bureau talking in hushed tones about Holt around any member of the Nine Nine, or the overwhelming sense that what she says and does now will dictate exactly how the rest of her life will be panning out.

But Holt likes these black tie affairs, and assumed she’d like it, and known that she and the rest of the squad would really benefit from it, so here she is. Her dress is nice. Not too nice, like Terry’s wife. Not slightly ludicrous like Gina’s, and not slightly sexy without even trying like Rosa’s. It’s white and clean and crisp and exactly the sort of thing you’d see selling on the clearance rack because you can’t help but look at it and wonder where someone would want to deliberately diminish their looks.

Amy supposes that she’s fortunate in a few ways then. That she’s pretty, and that she lives in a job that requires that she be taken seriously. Because she always gets her clothes on discount.

But, just like good sushi and an end-of-year police party, a 15% off Macy's sale doesn't exactly account for the pressure she and her female coworkers face trying to be taken seriously. 

Amy sighs. She  _really_ hates these things.

“Amy Santiago,” Holt says, greeting her as she idles awkwardly around the cheese platter and tries to not make it look obvious that she’s stuffed the remainder of the brie in her purse (she wrapped it in a napkin! And it was _really_ nice). “It’s good to see you. You remember Kevin?”

Holt’s husband smiles kindly at Amy, but with a wary sort of distance. He adores Gina, tolerates Jake grudgingly and judges the rest of them in between that bracket. Amy thinks it might be her painful earnestness that’s cast her near the Jake end of the table.

“Of course,” she smiles and shakes Kevin’s hand. She wonders if he can smell the cheese on her, and feels guilty. (Would they take away her badge for this? _Shit_ how expensive was that cheese anyway?) “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yes, good to see you as well Ms. Santiago,” Kevin smiles again. It’s all very nice. Amy almost banks on her surviving this thing by shadowing the few people she’ll know. “Is anyone else here yet?”

“I thought I saw Gina,” She says, remembering a peacock coloured dress that couldn’t have been anywhere else. “And Terry and Sharon are talking to the head of Detectives by the punch.”

“What punch is it?”

“Pardon?” Amy winces.

“What’s in the punch?” Kevin asks again.

“Oh,” Amy says. “I don’t…I wouldn’t know.”

Amy wants to pull the cheese out of her purse, wave it around and shout _viola!_ Just to ease the awkward silence that accumulates.

“Right,” Holt says, just at the same time as Amy tries “So, Captain—“

They both pause again, and there’s a psych major’s wet dream of awkward fumbling before they’re both walking in the opposite direction of each other. She can’t really blame the captain. She probably should have had something witty prepared for not knowing the punch tonight. She nearly sags with relief when she sees Boyle and Peralta stepping out of the lift together. They’re hard to talk to together, but they’re entertaining, and she won’t feel like a social reject because they’re so much more socially inept than she.

“Charles! Jake,” Amy waves at them as she approaches. Both turn and smile pleasantly at her as she approaches. “Hey. What’s happening?”

“What’s happening?” Jake mimics. “Oh no. Slight use of colloquial language is like a 6 on the Santiago panic scale. What happened? You face plant in front of the head of PR?”

“No,” Amy rolls her eyes. She shifts uncomfortably. “Well, I did take some cheese.”

Boyle perks up. “What type?” Boyle gets direct when he’s excited, so Amy quickly obliges before he spends the whole night speaking without pronouns or conjunctions.

“It’s Brie,” Amy taps the side of her bag semi-subconsciously. “But the best brie I’ve ever had.”

“They’re giving that stuff _away_?” Boyle asks, eyes wide, dashing off to the starters table before Amy can admit to her crime.

She sighs and turns to Jake. “I took it as in I _stole_ it.”

“I have too many things to respond to that with, so I’m just going to list them,” Jake says matter-of-factly. “First off, he’ll figure it out sooner or later. Though it probably won’t stop him.”

“It _is_ really good,” Amy says, half to herself.

“Secondly, I can’t believe that _Detective Santiago_ ,” he raises his voice a little as he says her name. “Broke the _law_.”

“Shhh,” she hisses, glaring. “I did not _break_ the law. I took some cheese. Which I would have eaten here anyway.”

“Mhm,” Jake doesn’t look convinced, looking at her with a smug grin. “Well, you gotta go in halves with me or I’m turning you in.”

“In to who?” Amy asks. “On what charge?”

“In to the FBI,” Jake tells her. “On the charge of stealing and murder.”

“Murder, hey?” Amy asks, wrinkling her nose. “I guess I’ve always wanted to see a murder trial from the defence.”

“See? Look, we help each other,” Jake grins. “I get to become a war hero, bringing home the _cheese fingered bandit killer_ and you get to live your life long dream of being convicted of a gruesome, horrific murder.” He sighs and shakes his head. “We make such a good team.”

Amy laughs and loosens the death hold on her bag slightly. “So,” she says. “What do you think of the building?”

“It’ll be really nice probably,” Jake says, like he has no idea what he’s talking about. “I love the dangerous machinery everywhere. It really gives it a little something extra.”

“They think it’ll be finished by the end of January,” Amy says, looking around at the exuberance of the only finished floor and remembers the skeletal look of some of the lower floors when she’d been driving towards it. “But I don’t think so. A month and a half?”

“Christmas miracle,” Jake shrugs. “You never know.”

“You’re Jewish,” Amy raises an eyebrow.

Jake sighs heavily. “ _Hanukah_ miracle then. Jeez. How much help does one building need?”

“Have you guys seen Rosa?” Charles bustles up to them, with some suspicious looking lumps under his dinner jacket.

“No,” Amy frowns. “Boyle! How many did you take?”

“ _Shhhh_ ,” he hisses, looking around. “I’m doing the cheese a favour. I’d appreciate _way_ more than the boneheads around here. I heard one of them calling it camembert!” He looks slightly deranged. “ _Camembert_!”

“How very dare them,” Jake looks very much like he wants a drink and a reason to omit himself from the conversation before he can admit that the only cheese he’s eaten in the past five years has been from a can.

“Why do you want to see Rosa anyway?” Any asks, frowning.

“She always has a big bag where she puts her stuff,” Boyle says. “I can’t go walking around like this all night. I’ll look like an idiot.”

“You got that right, buddy,” Jake smiles.

“So I thought I’d ask her if she wouldn’t mind hiding a few rounds of cheese,” Boyle continues as if he hadn’t heard. “I would have asked Amy, but her bags not big enough.”

“It’s plenty big,” Amy defends before realising that there’d been no cause for insult.

“Name of _my_ sex tape,” Jake grins. “Now, Boyle—“

Amy looks around. The crowd had thickened since she’d last paid attention to the milling of the officials around her. She saw Detective Wunch greet Holt and Kevin with a terse nod on either end. She sees the head of Detectives lingering slightly off to the side of Jake, eyeing him every so often. He probably wants a word with him, and Amy quenches her jealousy when she reminds herself of Jake’s dedication during the six month espionage that he probably should have been rewarded more for.

“ _Guys_!” Terry comes over to them, whining, eyes wide and hunched over, as if trying to make his 11-foot-tall-self less conspicuous. “You can’t stand in the middle of the room. You’re…” He pauses and huffs. “You’re _anteloping_.”

“And a happy _anteloping_ to you too,” Jake smiles. “How’s Sharon?”

“I’m good, Jake!” Sharon, very pregnant and beaming, appears over her husband’s shoulder with a wave. She supports herself as she comes around, leaning on Terry’s overly defined bicep for support.

“That’s good to hear!” Jake smiles. “How are the kids?”

“Cagney and Lacey,” Charles nods, almost to himself.

“They’re good,” Sharon smiles. “They’re with my brother tonight.”

Terry briefly smarts at the mention of Zeke, the dreaded brother in law, before remembering why he’d stormed over before his wife and Jake’s pow wow had dominated conversation. “You can’t just stand in the middle of the room! This ain’t Homecoming dance!”

“You couldn’t stand in the middle of the room at homecoming _dance_ ,” Charles scoffs. “You’d get _run over_.”

“I’ll take care of them captain,” Amy says, looking at Charles and wondering, yet again, what sort of life experiences he’d had to have had to have become who he is today.

“Nuh-uh Santiago,” Terry frowns. “You’re just as bad.”

Amy opens her mouth to refute this angrily, but he just gestures to her cheese filled bag and she meekly closes her mouth.

“That’s right,” Terry nods. Then he sighs. “Look, Amy, remember, these are your people. They probably know every single rule in the book. You like rules don’t you?”

“And books,” Jake supplies unhelpfully.

“Sure,” Amy obliges. “But I hate these things.” It almost feels like a relief to finally say it. “All these people are like…” Amy splays her hands as she tries to get the point across. “Super intimidating.” She finishes finally, letting her hands come to rest awkwardly by her hips.

“I agree,” Boyle says, and then winks conspiringly at Amy. She wonders what the hell _that_ was supposed to mean and decides she’s better off not knowing.

“Is Gina here?” Terry asks, worried again. The crowd is thick, and knowing Gina, she was probably enchanting a few cop Psychologists with her intimate knowledge of the criminal brain.

“I saw a peacock coloured dress,” Amy offers, and once she’d hazarded to where she thought she’d seen it, Terry and Sharon whizzed off.

They complied somewhat with his request, and went to stand by the food bar, so that Boyle wouldn’t have to keep dashing off. (Amy had suggested he just use a napkin, but he’d told her about this new thing he’d been doing…yeah, she’d sort of drifted off after that).

“Jakey!” Gina appears with a massive grin and a bottle of champagne in her hands. There’s something very impossible about Gina, and Amy can’t ever really put her finger on what it is. “And, you know…” Gina wrinkles her nose. “Jakes colleagues.”

“We’re _your_ colleagues too,” Amy reminds her. She wonders if _that_ was as far as she wanted to take this. Gina’s raised eyebrows gave her the answer to that question.

“Whatever,” she dismisses. “Jake!” She turns back to Peralta, who’s torn between helping Gina make fun of Amy and trying the normal looking chips off up the table. “Guess who I saw!”

“Jenny Gildenhorn?” Jake asks, paling, smoothing down his tie almost subconsciously.

“No, you love struck jackal,” Gina swings at him. “ _Matthew Jones_. Or at least a guy who looks _dead on like him_. We gotta go tug on his hair and see if it’s him. Like in the old days.”

“Um,” Jake says. “Ok.”

Amy and Boyle get to talking after Gina and Jake whizz off. There’s work, food, that brie they both stole, and a polish restaurant near her apartment that they manage to talk about. There isn’t a lot of intersecting interests between Boyle and Amy. He loves food, and while she does like to taste nice things, she can’t cook for the life of her. He thinks Jake is faultless, she thinks Jake could do with an attitude adjustment and a haircut.

“So you watch breaking bad?” Amy finally tries in an uncomfortable lull in the conversation.

Boyle’s eyes widen. “ _No_! But I really want to.”

“Oh,” Amy’s heart sinks. She’d thought from his hopeful expression that he had. “Well, uh, you should.”

“You ever see Masterchef?” Boyle asks, bouncing on his feet. “It’s the _only_ show I make sure I watch.”

“Oh, yeah,” Amy catches the odd repeat when she’s out of whack from doing overtime. “Love it.” She has no idea what the main objective of the show is, but she’s sure that given enough motivation, Boyle with chatter all night. And by then she would have picked up at least the general story line of the show.

She was right.

* * *

Rosa comes. She’s holding her motorbike helmet and manages to wear a leather jacket and not make her outfit look dodgy. Amy wishes she were more like Rosa. She sometimes wonders if the reason Rosa is so jaded is because she went through the police training academy with Jake. Amy wouldn’t be surprised.

“I need somewhere to put my stuff,” Rosa announces as way of hello. She’s and hour and a half late to the party but no one bats a disparaging eye.

“Hello Rosa,” Charles beams. “Do you have a bag where I could hide some brie?”

She stares at the two of them. “Wow.” She deadpans. “Some party.”

“It’s not bad actually,” Amy tries. It hasn’t been, not really. Gina and Jake disappeared which gave her a chance to talk to Charles for the longest time she thinks she’s every spoken to him. They’d been matched up on cases before, of course, but Amy has never really counted work talk as bonding time. Important, yeah. Team building; she has a whole binder dedicated to it. But that’s not how you make friends.

“Right,” Rosa says, scoffing. “You hate these things.”

“Rose I hate to be a niggling Nancy,” Boyle says, inadvertently saving Amy from answering. “But, your bag…?”

Rosa looks him up and down. “No.”

“Darn,” Charles, unperturbed, clicks his fingers and sighs. “Shirt it stays.”

“Gross,” Rosa complains. She rolls her eyes. “ _Fine_. But only because I don’t want the mental image of you with cheese down your pants ever _again_.”

“Great!” Boyle smiles, looking at Amy as if expecting her, his co-stealer, to recognise the enormity of the moment. “Not here, though. I saw some offices out the back there, thought we could, ya know,” Boyle waggles his eyebrows. Rosa slowly, slowly raises an eyebrow. “ _Make the drop_.”

Amy inwardly sighs. Rosa is so cool, calm, collected. _She_ probably doesn’t say things like ‘I wonder what cologne a man like Holt would wear at College’ before getting in the shower. _Yeah_ Amy has thought of Holt while in the nude. _Yeah_ it’s something she’s gonna take to the grave.

“Fine,” Rosa says, stalking off, her inward cool ensuring that she headed in the right direction straight off, rather than having to double back and readjust her route to the offices, as Amy would have done.

The three of them walk quickly. Amy doesn’t have to be there, per se, but it would probably be better that she does. For her sake, at least. She knows she has a large arsenal of police puns and doesn’t have entirely complete control on when they’d come out. She can just picture herself being formally introduced to the head of detectives and telling him she’d have to make a ‘cardiac arrest’ because he’d stolen her heart.

The offices are quiet, nothing but the muffled sound of giggling, and then a low man’s monotone as he makes a one-way conversation.

“In here,” Charles leads them. The office is nondescript, and probably the same as every other office on the floor. There’s no name at the door, and no distinguishing photos on the walls. Amy deducts (rather excitedly) that it must be the new Commissioner’s office. Or, in her dreams, her future office.

“Hmm,” Rosa makes out as she looks, unimpressed, at the surrounding room. “This is what they spent 12 million dollars on.”

“14 million,” Amy automatically corrects. Then steps on her own foot a bit with; “But I like it.”

“Waste of money,” Rosa complains, as Boyle quietly ducks behind the desk so neither of them have to look at his chest (a request Rosa made clear on the walk over).

Amy does agree, but she’s not sure whether or not there are cameras in the walls, and doesn’t want to be quoted hating on the police when it comes for her massive promotion. (It’s all on her 5 years from now board).

She’s saved from making the decision when the door opens and two people stumble in. Amy blinks. It’s Gina, and Jake, who look slyly around the room, startling when they notice their colleagues.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Gina groans. She drifts around the room, and then screams when she sees Boyle hidden behind the desk. “ _Charles_! You _swore_ to me I’d never have to see that _godawful_ sight again!”

“I’m sorry,” came Charles’s muffled reply. “But you know—“

“Don’t want to _hear it_ ,” Gina rips off, disgusted, back to where Jake is idling around the doorway.

“We’re here because Charles needs to put his stolen brie in Rosa’s bag,” Amy deftly explains. “He doesn’t want anyone to see him.”

"Gina needed quiet for some online espionage," Jake says. Facebook stalking, then, Amy figures.

“You’re ok with this?” Gina looks at Rosa.

“Not really,” Rosa says, nonplussed. “Why didn’t he just use your bag?”

“He knows me too well,” Gina says, sighing as if it a terminal diagnoses. She pulls a hairdryer out of her bag. “I’m full.”

“See,” Jake looks at Amy pointedly. “ _Hairdryer_.”

“Just because Gina does it doesn’t mean that it’s normal,” Amy points out. Gina, not even feigning offence, just nods.

“It’s true,” she sighs. “I am exquisite.”

Charles leaps up holding the round of brie just as Terry’s massive form fills in the doorway. He’s got his phone pressed on his ear, and is glaring at them.

“Actually, Zeke, can I call you back?”

“Cheese,” Charles points at his excuse with a hopeful earnest. “I needed somewhere to put it.”

“So you decided to come into the _very off limits_ offices to do it?” Terry demands, shoving his phone in his pants. “What have I told you a hundred times?”

“ _Parties are for being normal people_ ,” the Nine-Nine chants dejectedly.

“At least Scully and Hitchcock couldn’t come tonight,” Jake offers. “No Opera, everyone except Boyle is fully clothed.” He eyes Terry imploringly. “I mean, come on. I’m counting this one as a win.”

Terry just sighs. He nods to Boyle. “Tuck your shirt in.” He looks at Rosa. “Put the damn cheese in your bag.” She obliges, snatching it out of Boyles hand and burying it in amongst the leather from her bike. “And _you_ two,” he glares at Gina and Jake. “Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been following Greg Howett around.”

“He’s changed his _name_ ,” Jake turns to Gina. “That’s why we couldn’t find him on facebook.”

“Hmm,” Gina says, as if she’s angry at herself for not having figured it out earlier. Amy backtracks; Gina could never be angry at herself. More like she’s angry at the world for exploding in such a way that the entire culmination of history led to the point that Matthew Jones should change his name to Greg Howett.

“Detectives?” Holt appears at the door. He’s wearing his glasses. Amy instinctively flattens the front of her dress. “What are you all doing here?”

And they’re saved from answering.

If the building had been finished, this wouldn’t have happened. If the security guard hadn’t been overworked, if the cops on duty hadn’t cut their duty short to spend the few days before Christmas with their families, if the detectives up on the 42nd floor had looked down and noticed the odd commotion down below, this would have all been avoided.

There’s gun fire—

“Are they allowed that up here?” Amy demands, quickly, receiving Terry’s worried shaken head as an answer.

\-- And screaming. And Terry mouths Sharon’s name.

“In here,” Charles says, face white. The bathroom, an ensuite, and they all charge into it. Amy and Jake bring up the rear. Holt turns around before they can get in, shaking his head as they see how cramped it already is.

Jake taps Amy – silence is imperative – and gestures towards a set of doors. Amy hopes that they aren’t locked, and breathes with relief when they open at Jake’s touch. She thanks the incomplete building for the lack of shelves as well, huddling in beside Jake, and swinging the door to a silent close.

The air is dark and warming with the breaths and bodies of two people. Amy doesn’t dare look out the tiny crevices peering out into the office, but Jake does. She watches him, watches his eyes flick around and around.

She holds her breath as he draws abruptly back. She looks at him questioningly, and he nods. _Someone in the room_. There’s shouting. Voices.

 _Is that German?_ Amy mouths

 _What?_ She makes out from Jake.

She enunciates with more clarity. _Is. That. German?_

 _Oh_ , he says. _I think so._

She nods and looks away. And then flinches when she hears loud, angry voices coming over from the ensuite.

 _Crap_ , Jake mouths

She nods, holding her breath. If their friends are killed…

But the shouting just continues, and she hears Rosa grunt with annoyance as they’re presumably led out the toilet and through to where the rest of the party is. Amy figures that’s where the bulk of the gun wielding German invaders were staying, and they’d sent someone to search through the rest of the rooms.

There’s screaming, and shouting, but thankfully no more gun shots.

And there’s no more movement in their room. Amy looks at Jake again, who’s peering out.

 _Clear?_ She mouths

He shakes his head in confusion.

 _Clear?_ She tries again. And then nods her head to the outside.

Jake’s eyes alight with understanding and he nods, more serious now. _I cgbwougbe._

 _What?_ Amy tries. Then she bats it away. _Don’t worry I think I’ve got it._

 _What?_ Jake now.

 _Don’t. Worry._ Amy stifles a sigh.

“Um,” Jake’s voice is a hushed whisper. “Can we talk now?”

“Are they gone?” Amy makes out back, her voice barely above silent.

“Yeah,” Jake says, looking out. “We’re clear.”

 _And we’re really close to each other,_ Amy thinks, out of the blue. It’s inappropriate. Totally inappropriate. But she can’t help but look at his chest, his face, his skin, mere inches away from hers.

Amy blinks and rights herself. She’s a professional police officer. She needs to sort out her priorities.

“So what now?” Amy makes out, adjusting herself slightly so that she can look out into the room. She can’t make out anything intricate, but there’s enough stillness in the room that she feels comfortable in making noise. “Do we…stay here?”

“Or,” Jake starts.

Amy looks up at him warningly. “Don’t be a hero, Jake.”

“What?” Jake frowns.

Amy gives him a look. He frowns harder, and she responds by giving him an even more pointed look.

His eyes flash with received meaning. “You think I’m going to leave you here, fly off, save the day…” He grins. “Tempting, tempting, I gotta say…but I’d feel better with you watching my back.”

Amy warms unexpectedly at the words. She chastises herself; she knows she’s a good cop. But it seems special coming from Jake, like a mandate for brilliance she hadn’t known she needed.

“Let’s go stop some German gun toting lunatics,” Amy smiles. Their voices are still low, and her heart is still beating painfully in her chest, but somehow, she feels a certain sort of confidence.

“Oh yeah,” Jake grins. “Imma John McClane this sitch.”

“How long have you been waiting to say that?” Amy asks, smirking. Jake pushes the door out slowly, and it glides silently across the carpet.

“All my life,” Jake calls back, and beckons for her to follow him out into the office.


	2. That's a Beautiful Suit...I'd Hate to Ruin It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments y'all! I love them :)  
> My current status is that I recently downloaded the NASA app and am looking for any and every Opportunity to drop a space pun in. So if you see one, satisfy your Curiosity with this little (opposite of Jupiter) author note.
> 
> (Sorry)
> 
> Die Hard references are a little hard and fast this chapter, but you know, watch the movie. It's great. Unparalleled. Defining of its time etc. etc.   
> Enjoy! xx

Jake edges out first, leading Amy behind him. He can hear her heavy breathing, and the deep pangs of his heart thudding against his ribs. Down the hall are the not so distant sounds of shouting, and the unearthly tremor of a crowd of scared people. A crowd of scared people, who, at this moment, have no idea that their best hope for survival is making their getaway. Amy and Jake only have once shot at this.

(Does literally work here? With like _shot_? Because they would literally _be shot_ , but would it be _one_ shot?)

Jake shrugs off the thought and continues pressing out, pressing his face against the blinds, making out a few distant figures through the window.

“What are we thinking?” Amy breathes. She’s still clutching her bag, and Jake has half a mind to tell her to leave it behind, but he decides against it. Everything they might be able to use, they should gather up. Everything redundant they can ditch just as easily when they’re not in immediate peril.

“They’re not watching,” Jake says, peering harder. He can strain his eyes and make out the backs of heads. The excitement of immediate power over a large group of people can’t be overestimated. Especially if you’re a psychopath. He wishes he had something he could distract them with, but without knowing how far they’d have to run to get to the emergency exit, it seems needlessly dangerous.

“We have to run,” Amy’s voice is low. “They’ll be back.”

“Yeah, hang on, just give me a sec,” Jake says.

But Amy doesn’t give it to him. She hurries to the door around him, and pushes it open.

“Head first, eyes closed, can’t lose,” Jake mutters, and steals out after her. They walk silently over the carpeted floor. Amy has taken her shoes off—

(which, if his Die Hard memory is correct, and it always is, is probably a bad idea)

\-- and her tights provide a decided quiet as she moves quietly down the hallway. Jake’s shoes are worn and old, giving him the advantage pretty much no one else at the party would have had.

They had to sacrifice carefully looking back for speed, but when they finally get to the door, Jake looks back as he ushers Amy through. He hears a voice, something like a question, and he’s through the door and onto the emergency staircase before he can think anything of it.

Thudding, footsteps, and his blood runs cold. The adrenaline spikes and he and Amy scamper off down the stairs.

“Go, go,” he breathes, meeting her step for step, even as she winces every time her feet touch the severe cold of the steel.

“I’m going,” Amy snaps back, breathless but still managing to look up at him with a glare. They’ve made it down maybe a floor and a half before the door creaks open. They freeze and slowly, slowly, press up against the side of the stairwell, so that if he looks down he’ll only see half of two people, instead of all of two people. It’s nothing comparatively, but it feels somewhat safer than standing out in the middle of the stairs.

Neither of them speak for another 5 minutes after the door closes. The lack of footsteps is promising, but Jake can’t help the rising suspicion that the guy is just waiting out there for someone to make a move.

“I think he’s gone,” Amy says, breaking the spell of quiet.

“Holy shit,” Jake says. Not just about the close call – although, like _holy shit_ —but because they’re in a half completed building, and are currently camped out on a stairwell, surrounded by cement with a party of hostages somewhere in the general vicinity of above their heads. “I mean, like _holy shit_.”

“Yeah, I know,” Amy says, pushing hair back from her face and crossing her arms, goose bumps rising up on her skin.

“But, like—“

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Amy finishes for him. “Yeah.” She shivers. “I know.”

“Let’s get to the next floor,” Jake says, definitive. His heads still spinning.

“Sounds sensible,” Amy nods. She’s still shaking. Jake feels the childish impulse to reach out and steady her hand, warming her frigid fingers between his. But he doesn’t think Amy would appreciate it, so his hands flex out their frustration at his side.

The two of them walk quickly down to the next landing. The doorway there opens up into an in between space. There are no windows, and the ceilings are low enough that Jake has to bow his head.

“Must be some sort of service floor,” Jake looks around. There’s no scantily clad female calendar anywhere in sight, but he chalks that more up to modern day regulations, the inclusion of more women into the blue collar workforce and the fact that, like, as far as he’d been proved wrong so far, he wasn’t actually living out _Die Hard_.

“You think there’s something I could changed into up here?” Amy wrinkles her nose down at her dress. “I can’t see us saving the day wearing this.”

Amy herself is another glaring dissent from the classic formula was that Jake isn’t dying hard on his own. Unlike John McClane, he doesn’t have to perfect extended monologues. “Probably something that could work.”

“Maybe,” Amy says.

“Something that could fit your weird shaped butt might be a bit more difficult,” Jake calls after her, as she and he automatically split up, checking the unlocked lockers beneath a stretch of bench space. Amy spares a second to shoot back a half derisive, half entertained look.

He finds a set of red overalls in his first cupboard, but, as Amy so points out, walking around in swamping overalls wouldn’t do her much better. So they go with _her_ loser choice, which is a workman bodysuit and a tie of string to adjust the waist so that her movement isn’t totally encumbered. Amy ducks behind a set of industrial sized heaters and Jake rests down on the ground. And begins to think.

Right, so any good action hero knows that their first course of action is to get some weaponry. Then outrun the bad guys, eventually outsmart the police when law enforcement inevitably turns on them, before riding off with Grace Kelly into the sunset. Already there are a few glaring issues with the brief. Jake doesn’t have a Grace Kelly needing saving (unless you count Boyle, which, uh, he doesn’t). He _is_ the police, so while it _is_ kind of badass to be a rogue cop fighting justice on all fronts, he also knows that keeping in the good books with those he manages to get in touch with will be imperative.

But the guns. _That_ he can deal with.

Santiago is quick back out. She isn’t holding her dress, which is a shame because Jake had been delving on some plan that had involved burning it and sending out smoke flares. It was a long shot, so he lets it go. She is still holding her bag, which might work.

“Have you checked your phone?” Amy asks before he can launch into his ultimate plan. He pauses and feels a little stupid. He’d been so focused on how grand of a scale everything needed to be, that he’d overlooked the basics. Amy pulls hers out, taking his silence as a no. “The signal is completely out. Not even any SOS.”

“So I guess,” Jake’s voice is low, and rough. He think he sounds good; like he’s been downing too much scotch to deal with the pressure of the job. “We’re on our own.”

“You sound like a chain smoker,” Amy says. “I don’t even know who you were trying to imitate there.”

“Liam Neeson,” Jake says, annoyance brining his voice up to its usual pitch. “ _Duh_.”

“Liam Neeson has like a British accent,” Amy says. “You didn’t even do a little bit of a British accent.” She blinks and seems to readjust herself. “Anyway, that’s not important right now. We have to figure out how we’re gonna get help.

Jake looks at her plaintively.

Amy concedes. “ _Or_ how we’re going to save the day.”

“Well lucky for you and everyone trapped in this building,” Jake says. “I’m the best cop in the world.”

“Has the best cop in the world thought of a plan?” Amy asks, walking around to sit opposite him. She slides along the wall, her bare feet tapping on the ground.

“Actually, I have,” Jake grins. “Ok, so I was thinking, we’re going to need guns.”

There’s a long drawn out silence, before Amy furrows her brow. “Wait, is that it?” She sniffs. “That’s not even a plan. That’s like…that’s like the brainstorming before a plan.”

“Sure it’s a plan,” Jake argues. There’s a small voice in the back of his head that he should be taking this more seriously, but he’s never taken anything completely seriously in his life and it’s worked for him so far. “More like a bare bones plan, sure. I mean, we get the guns, we save the day, free the hostages and get told to put New York in our rear view mirror by the local police who don’t like our methods…”

“This isn’t a C-grade—“

Jake coughs, glaring.

“ _B_ grade,” Amy amends. “action movie. _We’re_ police. The only movie this situation has any similarities to is Die Hard.” Amy looks as if she’d been stunned. “ _Weird_ similar actually.”

“I _know_ right?” Jake shakes his head. “I can see the New York Times article. _Die Hard: it defined a Generation, and now it has Defined the Hardest Night of their Lives._ ”

“You’re putting on the voice again.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“That was my newsreader voice.”

Amy just blinks at him. She’s still holding her bag, plucking at it in her fingers. She senses the need to just yank the conversation in the direction she needs it to go, or else they’ll be bickering over nothing for the whole night. Jake heaves a sigh and leans back. “We need to figure out what they want, and where they’re coming from—“

“How many they are, whether any other hostages have escaped,” Jake finishes. The severity in dropping the mood had always been his least favourite feeling. Really, if you can’t have the odd laugh on the run from some bad guys in a small enclosed space, when _can_ you? “And, because Charles Boyle decided to become a police officer, we’ll be able to tell how many of them think brie is called camembert on the number of bite marks on their neck.”

“That’ll be helpful,” Amy nods, and the tiny smile is enough for Jake’s chest to loosen, just a little bit.

“I noticed the 43rd floor is pretty close to the 42nd. I think there’re more offices up there,” Jake says, conversationally. Amy blinks in surprise, and he backtracks. “Sorry, my awesome detective skills just mean I pick up on important details.” He sighs and stares off pensively past Santiago’s head. “It’s a curse.”

“Sure,” Amy says. “I’m pretty sure the stairs we came out of go up. We could—“

“Take them, sneak around, analyse the sitch and save the day?” Jake finishes for her. “ _Let’s do it_.”

“You did the voice again.”

“That’s because its _cool_.”

They have no reason to think the elevator isn’t working, but there’s plenty of evidence to tell them that using it would probably be a bad idea. The lift itself is positioned in the middle of every floor, and the dinging of it coming to a stop would be hard to miss. The fact that no one knows they’re missing is, at the moment, their biggest advantage.

Which is a pretty crap actually. And not really an advantage at all. But at the moment, Jake and Amy will take what they can get.

The stairs they go up are unchanging from floor to floor. The only way they have to know where they are is a crude marking in orange paint on the top step marking the next level. They pass the 42nd floor without much celebration. Only the catching curiosity that turns their heads, and almost at once, they both think; _what if?_

They stop before they open the door, and stand side by side, facing it.

“If there’s someone on the other side, they’ll catch us,” Amy’s jaw is tight. Her hands are shaking again.

Jake’s are too, but he’s better at hiding it.

“Sure,” he says. “But also I forgot to quote Die Hard back there, so I’m going to do it now.” He clears his throat, puts on his best Gruber and smiles like Alan Rickman (but like Alan Rickman in Die Hard, not Love, Actually). “That’s a beautiful suit…I’d hate to ruin it.”

Amy stares up at him. “I think it really needed the context.”

“Really?” Jake says, disappointed. “It was when you were getting changed…As in like suit to dress.” He nods. “Bit of a reach, but you know.” He grins. “ _Die Hard_.”

“Yeah, oh, yeah, right,” Amy nods, considering again. “I mean, good one.”

“Rate out of 10?”

“Rate what out of 10?”

“This aspect of the Peralta Experience.”

They’re about to open a door and face bullet and/or death. Amy tilts her head. “A 6. But mostly because I’m sort of in a bad mood.”

“I’ll take a 6,” Jake says.

Their heads turn together as they face the door. Amy swallows, uncomfortable. Jake feels the awkward lightness of his hip where his gun should be. They’d trained for things like this, but all those simulations had been riding on the assumption that they wouldn’t, a) go to any potentially dangerous spots on duty without their guns and b) wouldn’t be in any potentially dangerous spots not on duty.

Amy braces herself behind him as Jake readies himself at the door. His hand is on the handle, and then he turns.

He lets it open the fraction of a crack to look in. He doesn’t remember John McClane taking so long to get from A to B, but then again, John McClane was a cop in the 80’s and was allowed to bring his gun on a plane.

There’s no one there, so he edges it open further. He and Amy quietly sneak out into the corridor. It’s not as furnished as the floor below, but boxes crowd the way, and everything too large to be brought up in the elevator, like a long cabinet, has already been lain out. The stoppages give them more cover than Jake would have hoped for, but would hinder their escape more than he would like.

The carpet is dusty, but firm, and Jake only hears the barest creak from his shoes. Amy and her bare feet are ghostly quiet behind him. They sneak down the hall until they hear voices clattering up.

“ _Shitshitshitshit_ ,” Jake and Amy scurry back, bracing themselves on opposite sides of the room, each behind their own box. Jake looks across at Amy and sees her facing him, eyes wide with fright. Her knees hunched up close to her body. She has her bag pressed close to her chest. Jake, for all his 2 sessions of gymnastics when he was really young, awkwardly holes himself up as small as he can. His knee is in his face and he thinks he feels his hamstring tearing.

He readjusts how he’s sitting with only a grunt of complaint.

The voices come—

 _German,_ Jake mouths to Amy. She nods.

\-- And then they go. Nothing distinctive enough for Jake to have heard even if they weren’t speaking in an archaic European language.

The murmurs fade away, until they’re a basic undertow.

 _We should move closer_ , Jake tries. He’s pretty sure Amy took a seminar on lip reading a few years ago (which is a lot cooler than he’d admit) so it doesn’t take the million times like it had when she’d been trying to speak to him before.

 _Oh_ , Amy looks a lot less terrified now. She’s always been good at keeping her cool, even as Jake himself knows that if he looked in a window, all he’d see staring back at him would be a cold, pale version of himself.

(Noted, though, that _Cold, Pale Version of Himself_ would be an awesome name for a book if he was ever corrupted and forced to leave the force in disgrace).

 _Yes,_ Amy gets across her affirmation with mostly nodding. Jake thinks that she’s probably as sick of the nonverbal communicating as he is.

(The tagline would be; _my ultimate disgrace_. Except it _wouldn’t_ be a disgrace, it would all be a ploy to get him out on parole faster. Even as a criminal Jake’s the coolest person in the world).

She heads out first, and he hurries on after her. She scurries around the boxes, keeping her head up and her feet light. Jake copies her as best as he can, but his suit pants don’t give as much as he’d like, and though he’d done away with the top button 5 minutes after leaving his apartment, his shirt digs awkwardly around his shoulders.

Every time there’s something loud, the two of them back up, hide again, and communicate drearily through the painful reading of each other’s lips.

Jake tugs at the pant leg of Amy’s outfit and stops her, gesturing to the air. They’re at a crossroads, right up to where the terrorists must have gone. They’re still too far away to see them (and be seen, on a nicer note) and if the Germans are speaking German (which is pretty likely) they won’t even be able to hear what they’re saying. But they can work out a rough number from the amount of voices they hear, and if they pick up any names they’ll be able to use that down the line.

Amy frowns. Jake looks at her imploringly and holds a hand to his ear.

 _We can hear them now_ , he mouths. Amy nods and moves back. The boxes clutter at this end of the hall, so she squats in beside him. They do their best to hold their breath and quiet the quickened beating of their hearts.

“…don’t know what you’re talking about,” an eerily familiar voice floats down.

“ _Podolski_?” Amy recognises it before Jake does, which is almost embarrassing. If Jake was going to be able to pick out anyone in the crowd, it would have made sense to be his arch nemesis.

So the kidnappers have taken one of the higher ups, and are in discussion with him. Phrasing it like that sounds like it’s a business merger. Except in the business of _murder_.

“That’s –“

“You must,” the voice is accented in German. “Appreciate our position, Commissioner.”

 _Commissioner?_ Amy looks at Jake. Jake shrugs, thinking hard. Podolski probably would have sent around a New York State wide email if he ever became Commissioner, so a secret promotion didn’t make sense.

Jake blinks. Which means Podolski’s lying to protect the Commissioner. Which means he’s dropped the asshole act and is actually being a decent man slash cop slash deputy Commissioner.

Amy seems to realise as soon as he does, and sags a little on the wall.

“…the position is as simple as I can make it to you,” the German voice again. It’s just been the same voice, and other than the odd shuffling, there doesn’t seem to be many men in there.

Jake rolls his eyes at himself and nudges Amy. She looks up; _Hostages._

 _What?_ She frowns.

 _Hostages_ , Jake properly enunciates.

 _No, I ergbebibs_ , Amy says. She just whispers when she sees his confusion. “I got that. What do you mean?”

“Some of the guards will be with the hostages,” Jake says. “So we don’t have any idea of numbers. It’s _basic_ Gruber. I’m so mad at myself right now.”

“They probably wouldn’t change how many people they have looking over a bunch of trained professionals,” Amy reasons. “At least this way we know all of them that they can spare.”

“This is true,” Jake dips his head, before leaning back. “Ok,” he says. “I’m finished. Let’s listen.”

“And I’ve told you it just _isn’t viable,_ ” Podolski voice wafts over to them, loud in its anger. “The US government does not negotiate with terrorists.”

“He’s pulling out the big guns,” Jake whispers to Amy.

“We do not care _what_ the US government has done or will do,” the German accent announces the return of the main talking guy. Jake decides to call the guy _Gruber_ , for obvious reasons, and also because he’s too distracted to think of a better name. “I do not care if the government is not involved at all. Use your contacts, Mr. Commissioner.” There’s a pause. “I know you have them.”

“ _I_ don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Podolski spits. Jake can finally appreciate the sardonic tone he’d come to hate so much is a pretty satisfying tool to have on your side. “And neither do _any_ of the people you’ve taken up here.” There’s another pause. Jake really wishes he had a visual so he knew whether Podolski was leaning back and crossing his arms and creeping across the table. Given there’s a table to begin with.  “You should have thought of that before you locked us all up.”

“It is pretty dumb to go after cops,” Amy whispers. She’s plucking at the zip to her bag as if to help her think.

“Unless police are the only people who can get them what they want,” Jake muses back. He’s been wondering that as well; Politicians might have the secret service, but the police _are_ the Secret service. Except with a less cool sounding name. Every single person held knows how to disarm someone holding a gun. It’s true they wouldn’t try anything with so many other guns around, but isn’t that sort of the standard everywhere?

“Police are kind of crafty,” Amy tilts her head.

“Go us,” Jake says. “ _Crafty._ ”

There’s a cacophony of shouting, and the two of them huddle, straining their ears to discern anything through the noise. There’s some more shouting, something flung across the room and hitting the wall, and then the sort of sickening thud followed by a long silence.

Amy grips onto Jake’s wrist, looking up at him. “Let’s go.” Her voice is barely low. “They’ll be coming back. Let’s _go_.”

Jake pushes off first, with Amy trailing behind. They move faster now, the sound of their feet on the carpet the last of their worries.

The shout comes from behind them. “ _Nein_!”

“Oh crap,” Amy says, at the same time that Jake looks back, frowns and says, “ _Nein_? Really?”

The door tugs open at his fingers and the two of them fall out onto the landing. The gun shots behind them crash off into the cement wall and the door. Jake looks back to see a man raging after them, clutching a machine gun in his hands, longish blond hair whipping around his face.

“Down, down,” Jake hurries, as he and Amy barrel down together, barely making it to the next landing without falling to their knees and breaking their legs. They hurry around, just out of sight as the next barrage assaults them. It hits hard into the new lain cement, sparking dust off into the air.

More bullets, and the two of them keep running. It’s easier than running upstairs, and faster, but it’s also easier and faster for the other guy. They’re barely upright in the speed they’re forced to take, and even then it isn’t enough.

“What are they _fed_ in Germany?” Jake puffs as they round another corner, marking their closest call yet.

Amy starts to slow down. She looks at Jake as they’re moving, and skids to a stop. “Keep going, I have an idea.”

“Wha—“

“ _Jake_ ,” Amy snaps, and they don’t have time to argue so he hurries on.

Jake looks around just in time to see Amy duck down, jump up and tackle the legs of the gun wielding maniac, frightening him out of shooting down at them. It’s a good thing Jake does look back, because he leaps out of the way just in time for the said Maniac to crash down the stairs beside him. First his shoulders, then his back and his knees and finally the side of his head take the brunt of the fall.

Both Jake and Amy are breathing heavily as he plunges to the lower storey, and both wince in unison as he smacks down onto the next landing.

“Nice one,” Jake says, still puffing. “I was just about to do that.”

“Sure thing,” Amy says, trying to sound derisive but coming across more panting and flustered. She stands up, a little shaken but obviously ok. Amy slowly comes to the step beside him. They both look at each other, and then look at the guy.

“Is he—“ Jake starts.

“Dead?” Amy guesses. “I didn’t hear a crack. I don’t think his neck is broken.” And with that she skips down the stairs beside the man. She kneels down and places her fingers onto the pulse on his neck just as Jake comes up beside her.

“Still alive but he’s barely breathing?” Jake guesses.

“Yeah,” Amy nods, beginning to ruffle through his clothes, and then muttering “ _a-ha_ ” under her breath when she pulls out a length of rope.

Jake wants to remind her that she was supposed to finish off his prompt with; _Just prayed to a God that I don’t believe in_ , but Amy was never really that good at music quoting anyway. Jake bets they don’t have a seminar on _that_. Actually, they probably do.  They have seminars for everything these days. But it’s probably in the cool part of the seminar world that Amy’s probably allergic to.

“So that’s what they feed Germans,” Jake says wryly as Amy, finished tying the unconscious guys hands together in a crude knot, pulls out a half-eaten packet of chips from his pocket. Jake picks it up as Amy puts it down and starts eating them. Salt and vinegar. Not his favourite, but all they had at that party was sushi and brie cheese, one of which Jake doesn’t trust on the ground that anything meat-like served uncooked is unholy, and the second was almost completely stolen by his two friends. He also hates brie cheese, so, there’s that.

Amy looks up at him. “You’re just gonna…eat that?”

“What, uh, yeah?” Jake frowns at her. “Oh, wait, sorry.” He offers the packet down to her. “You want some?”

Amy just tuts and paws the bag away. She’s collected a few other items from his pockets. There’s a wallet full of hard cash, but no credit cards or identifying marks. All that green would be useful if they were in the real world. But unfortunately they’re in the _surreal_ world.

(Jake doesn’t know what surreal means but he feels like the use of the word was appropriate.)

“Here,” Amy pulls out a small handgun from behind the back of the guys pants. And she takes the machine gun from its holster and the extra bullets. She purposefully slows down, the nerd she is, and spends a good five seconds putting the gun in safety.

“You done?” Jake peers down at her.

“Ok, you wanna do this?” She looks back at him, waving the gun around a bit. And Jake’d be a bit more worried if she hadn’t just spent a century making sure it couldn’t hurt anyone/anything. Less of all someone with his epic reflexes.

“Absolutely,” Jake says.

Amy ignores him with a roll of her eyes and turns back to dressing him down. At last she tugs off his shoes.

“Oh my god,” she says, looking up at him. “You’ll never believe it.”

“What?” Jake kneels down beside her. “That guys feet are smaller than your sisters?”

“I only have brothers,” Amy says slowly, confused. “So…yeah?”

“It was a quote from Die Hard,” Jake says impatiently. “Anyway, what?”

“They fit,” She grins, pulling the stocky work boats up over her gossamer tights. The last of the party is tucked safely away. She panders her foot out in front of them both, grinning from ear to ear. “Score one Santiago.”

“Whew, shoes that fit,” Jake says, chewing on his chips, speaking at the same time and still managing to be a gentleman about it. “We are having a terrible night, aren’t we?”

And it’s either Jake’s consistent wearing her down, the lateness of the hour (8:30) or Amy’s relief that something had gone their way, but she laughs at his terrible joke as she’s tying up the laces.

Jake hopes this new thing of her finding him the funniest guy in the universe continues, because he really likes listening to her laugh.

“Ok,” Amy stands up and stomps around in the shoes. “Let’s work this out. What do we do next?”

Jake cricks his neck, standing with her. “Something a little naughty, I hope.”

“You were doing the voice again.”

“Oh my _god_.”


End file.
